


sweet hauntings

by faerietell



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 14:36:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15121547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faerietell/pseuds/faerietell
Summary: Steve Rogers has long made peace with the death of Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. He doesn't expect to be seeing ghosts.





	sweet hauntings

It was a different SHIELD doctor this time. Quiet and unassuming with dark curls pinned up high and some awe in her eyes. Her eyes reminded Steve of Peggy, but he was always looking for her. Her, and the others. Stubble that reminded him of Gabe in the mornings. Jim Morita’s laugh in a grocery store. It was Bucky he looked for most, but Steve never found him in anyone.

“Alright, Mr. Rogers, just follow the light.” Her lipstick was a pale rose. Peggy preferred red, but he couldn’t name what kind of red. Her flashlight darted back and forth, and obediently, he looked right. Left. Then up and down.

“Any headaches or pain?”

“No, ma’am.”

The doctor hesitated. “You had a restless night.”

It was one of the reasons he didn’t want to stay overnight. Steve gave her a wane smile. “Trouble sleeping. Nothing new.”

She moved on, apparently too polite to ask him why he screamed awake. Why he asked the nurse where he was. Why the ocean was so cold. “When were you born?”

“July 14, 1918,” he smiled at her, trying to ease her. “But I’m still in my thirties.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

They had been in Arizona, in a dry, hot mile of isolated land. Tony had complained about the sand getting in his suit. The radio was crackling with static before Natasha told them to come in. They were after a smuggler of serum, serum not too different from what made Steve Captain America or Natasha Black Widow. It was top priority for SHIELD.

It was top priority for him.

The serum could make heroes, villains, but it came at a cost. One day, everyone around him would die, and it would be him and Natasha, like they were still in their twenties. Thor, too, but Thor was a god. He was born eternal. Steve was human, and this was the price he would pay.

Clint and Natasha had gone in first. Tony had shortly followed. Steve and Mark were there more for brute strength, and it wasn’t until the small house exploded that they had gone running in. And then nothing. Heat and fire. And for some reason, the feeling of drowning.

Steve summarized it in a sentence. “I was hurt in an explosion.” Before she could ask anything else, he went on. “Ma’am, I’m fine. I’m as good as new. Healing comes with the powers.”

The doctor pursed her lips. “You were out for three days.”

“That was healing.”

She didn’t say anything, her eyes scanning through his chart. Steve thought she would look less like Peggy with time, but she only looked more like her, with how she was concentrating. More confidence, less of her previous nervousness. Steve looked away. “There’s nothing wrong with you, but I’m afraid I don’t know if our science is even on par. We did take some bloodwork, but it will be a while before there’s any definite results on that. You’re free to go.”

Relief. “Thank you – ”

She was flustered again. “Simmons. Dr. Jemma Simmons.”

“Thank you, Dr. Simmons.”

 

 

Natasha had helped him pick out a new apartment in DC. Everything was wooden and small and cozy. There was a potted plant in the kitchen he reminded himself to water every week. The balcony was only about three-square feet, but he liked standing there, leaning on the rails and staring down at the quiet street. He kept the television on whenever he was home, usually to a nature channel or home improvement shows.

Noise in the background but nothing startling.

Getting ready for bed was routine. Dr. Simmons had recommended having a friend over for more nighttime supervision, but it had had been a few days. So, alone, he stripped off to his boxers and a white tee. He brushed his teeth twice. Washed his face. Padded back to his bed. Straightened the corners. Fell asleep.

When he woke up, Bucky Barnes was rifling through an old sketchbook and sitting on the corner of Steve’s bed. “Hey, punk. Guess you’re awake.”

Holy. Fuck.

 

 

Six weeks after he woke from the ice, Steve had been obsessed in what happened next. He went to museum exhibits about him, but he only focused on the Howling Commandos. On Howard Stark. Peggy Carter. Bucky Barnes. He met Kimberly Procter, a woman with Bucky’s eyes, and she told him everything the newspapers didn’t.

They didn’t have a funeral – only a memorial. There was no body, after all. Rebecca hadn’t cried. Steve’s own mama had been there. It was quiet and small. There was a little piece on it in the papers next week. Rebecca always told Kimberly that she didn’t believe much in God after that, but she believed it when she heard the preacher talk about Bucky, about his salvation and grace.

Bucky had died a fucking hero.

It was hard to listen to it. It was Steve’s fault Bucky had died at all. He didn’t know his faith anymore. He was born and raised an Irish Catholic, and he had met Norse gods and defied nature. He had killed, and he had almost been killed. He believed in kindness and good people. In justice and righteousness.

The details were details.

What he did know was the dead was dead. They didn’t come back. He could dream of them, and he would. Sometimes they were photorealistic memories, like finding Bucky again. Sometimes they were things that never happened. Dancing with Peggy and kissing her slender neck. Finding Bucky had somehow been frozen in ice too. Never going to war and always being that boy from Brooklyn.

“You’re not real,” he croaked.

“Don’t be a fucking war film, Steve,” Bucky rolled his eyes and – his voice, God, his voice. He had tried to preserve it to memory, but he could never quite get it right. It was always too low, too much rasp. Now he was hearing it again.

“You’re… dead.”

Bucky agreed. “Yeah. It’s true. Pretty dead. Seems like, anyway.”

It was the explosion. The doctor was right – he was hallucinating. Steve slid out of bed and headed into the kitchen, pouring himself a tall, clear glass of water. Bucky followed. Steve closed his eyes and drained it one go. When he opened his eyes, Bucky was still there. Except he was on the piano that didn’t work, miming playing. His fingers passed through the keys.

Steve gave himself permission to stare at his hallucination.

Bucky wasn’t wearing his uniform, but he wasn’t wearing something from this decade either. It was non-descript, plain. There was some scruff on his face, and a grin slid onto his mouth. Steve remembered that year when Bucky was sixteen when he bit his lips as a nervous habit; for some reason, Steve loved that year. It might have been being sixteen. There was something tired in his eyes, and his hair was a little longer. It wasn’t just a hallucination but a hallucination that had grown, had changed.

Steve had to give his brain props.

“I picked up some piano during the war,” Bucky said. No, Hallucination Bucky. It wasn’t real. “I wasn’t good, but I could play a good dancing tune. Does this work?”

“No,” Steve said. “It came with the apartment.” He paused. “It’s out of tune, anyway.” Steve reminded himself he was talking to air. There was nothing there, no Bucky Barnes. He kept talking anyway. “I thought you preferred to dance.”

“I do,” Bucky threw him a grin. “Want me to take you for a spin?”

“I’ll pass,” Steve said dryly. “Just… stay there.”

His hallucination obeyed, and Steve went back to his room. He shut the door quietly, back pressed to the wall, and he slowly slid down to the floor. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t fucking real. Of all the way his head liked to mess with him, he chose Bucky. It would have been less painful to see Peggy that morning. He didn’t blame himself for Peggy. He had never gotten a chance to love Peggy like he wanted to. Steve’s hands dug into his hair.

And Bucky was next to him. Flickered in, like static on the radio, like an inhale-exhale. “You okay, Steve?” He asked, real quiet.

“Didn’t I tell you to stay there?”

“You wouldn’t believe I was real if I listened.”

Steve stared up at the ceiling because he couldn’t look at Bucky. Hallucination Bucky. Ghost Bucky. Bucky Bucky. “I still don’t believe you’re real.”

A low laugh. “You were always stubborn.” There was a flicker of movement, a chill near his shoulders. Steve looked to find Bucky’s hand hovering on his shoulder. Bucky whispered, “I wish I could touch you.”

 

 

They talked for an hour.

 

 

Steve was a couple of minutes late for meeting Sam for coffee, but Sam didn’t say anything as he greeted him with a “hey, man” and pat on the back. They order coffee: Sam chose a black expresso, and Steve went with the daily special.

“How’re you doing?” Sam asked. “Hear you got banged up pretty bad.”

“Nothing serious,” Steve shook his head. “What about you? Hear there’s a lady you like.”

Sam barked out a laugh. “She’s not much of a lady.”

“Then she might be good for you,” Steve grinned.

“Too good for me.”

“I won’t argue.”

Their numbers were called, and Steve fetched the coffees. He liked this place – it was a cozy, quiet nook in the capital, and no one had recognized him yet. The special was a dark roast with a hint of citrus that he kind of liked. They talked football for a couple of minutes (at least some things didn’t change) before the words burst out of him.

“Have you ever met someone whose seen… ghosts?” God, Steve had to sound more casual. “You’ve met a lot of people.”

Sam took a sip of coffee, and his reply was just as easy. “Mostly veterans so unless you mean a ghost from your past. In a dream.”

Steve kind of had both. A ghost. From his past. And it was like a good dream.

“But you know, the paranormal. Tony’s been trying to get me into horror movies.” It wasn’t untrue; Tony was. It just had nothing to do with why he was asking.

“Dude, I believe in some spooky shit. There’s stuff we can’t explain. There’s Norse gods and buff guys with shields. I’d say it’s real and out there.” Sam said. “Aren’t you Catholic or something? What do you think?”

Thing was, Steve had never told Sam was. It was hard to adjust, sometimes, knowing that everyone knew his life story. That there were classes on him, biographies and articles. There was Steve Rogers, and there was Captain America. The world got their bite of both.

“My mom used to have a theory on ghosts,” Steve glanced down at his hands. “She thought God would allow them into this world with a purpose. They come to teach us. To warn us. To ask something of us. Whatever it may be.”

If Bucky was a ghost, he could be there to teach Steve a lesson. If there was a warning, Bucky would have given it by now. As for what he might ask, Steve could only wonder.

“So kind of like the unfinished business thing in movies,” said Sam.

Steve smiled wryly. “Who doesn’t have unfinished business?” They drank their coffee in silence a while, and the shop owner changed the radio station twice.

“This was out of nowhere. You’re not seeing ghosts, are you?” Sam asked, half genuine, half joking. Steve wasn’t sure enough to answer one way or the other, so he did what he usually did. He gave the truth.

“Only the usual kind.”

 

 

On day two of co-habitation with Ghost Bucky (Steve wasn’t sure if this was Hallucination Bucky or Ghost Bucky, but the second was faster to say) was a lot of Bucky figuring out how to _ghost_. If this was a hallucination, it was likely Steve had farther progressed into madness. Looking at Bucky fixated on a small metal spoon, Steve found he didn’t mind a little insanity.

“Try a plastic spoon first,” Steve suggested, sitting on his kitchen table as Bucky failed. Multiple times.

“It’s gonna happen, Steve.” Bucky stared hard down at it. “It’s gonna be this spoon.”

After twenty minutes, it became clear that it wasn’t going to be that spoon. Bucky said he didn’t think bending spoons was a ghost thing anyway. It took an hour before Bucky figured out the odd draft of wind. Sometimes, he could manage the occasional chill that ran down Steve’s spine (but Steve didn’t know if it was ghost powers or something else altogether).

There were a few rules about Bucky Barnes the ghost.

  1. In the night, Bucky was brighter, almost real.
  2. He was cold to the touch.
  3. It felt too real.



 

Steve kept thinking about what his mam used to say, about God sending ghosts with a purpose. Then his eyes would wander over to Bucky, a languid figure on the couch, eyes fluttered shut even though he couldn’t sleep, lips parted though nothing would enter them. All lazy lines and sleepy eyes. Not like he came here from God, here to damn or deliver.

No, this was Bucky. Just Bucky.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> hello!!!! this is a month or two old, but i wanted to get it out there! lots of love and lmk what you think <3


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